Mexico-U.S. Problem : Drugs: New ‘El Dorado’ in Sinaloa

CULIACAN, Mexico — Alongside a railroad track that runs through Culiacan, the steamy capital of Sinaloa state, there is an ornate shrine to a turn-of-the-century bandit.

Legend has it that this bandit was a kind of Robin Hood who stole from the rich and gave to the poor. People here all but worship him, and pilgrims come to the shrine in search of miracles. They rub his plaster head.

In recent years, townsfolk say, not a few visitors to the shrine have been outside the law themselves--people caught up in the lucrative local trade in heroin, marijuana and cocaine.

Thanks for Prosperity

“They come to give thanks for their prosperity and pray that the police do not catch up with them,” said lawyer Jesus Michel Jacobo, who on occasion defends accused narcotics traffickers in court.

Narcotics smuggling is rampant in Sinaloa, a Pacific coast state with a population of 3 million that is one of Mexico’s main producing areas for opium and marijuana. Straddling the rugged Sierra Madre, Sinaloa and the adjoining states of Durango and Chihuahua form a sort of Mexican “Golden Triangle.”

The Sinaloa drug traffic is abetted by what has been, at best, an ineffective state effort to enforce the law. Violent crime is common; Culiacan, a city of 600,000, averaged a murder a day last year.

Rumors of Corruption

Rumors linking government officials to narcotics lords are as common as tumbleweed. Not long ago, U.S. Customs Commissioner William von Raab singled out an official of the neighboring state of Sonora as being involved in the drug traffic. Privately, Mexican officials suggest that he must have meant Sinaloa.

Drug traffic from Mexico has become a major irritant between the United States and Mexico. U.S. officials charge that little is being done south of the border to stem the narcotics tide.

According to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, a third of the marijuana bought in the United States is grown in Mexico; a third of the heroin that enters the United States is processed from Mexican-grown opium poppies; much of the cocaine produced in Latin America passes through Mexico on its way to the United States.

Stepped-up Vigilance

Following complaints about the lax Mexican effort to stamp out the traffic, the United States has announced plans to increase its vigilance along the frontier with Mexico.

The task will be difficult. The border is long, and deep in Mexico a number of factors contribute to the problem. For high-rolling smugglers, the drug trade is the new El Dorado of sudden riches. For the poor, growing marijuana and opium poppies is a way to escape from poverty.

In the Sinaloa countryside, where thatch roofs and bare feet predominate, the opportunity to work on someone’s marijuana crop is considered a godsend; even stoop labor on this crop pays three or four times the $2 a day that the local factories pay, and the work is steadier.

‘They Are Hungry’

“Many who do it do so because they are hungry and live in misery,” said Father Agustin Gonzalez, a parish priest in Badiraguato, a small town in the mountainous marijuana and poppy country.

Fear leads many Sinaloa residents to look the other way.

“I handle weddings, deeds and divorces, and deal with all kinds of people,” Francisco Mendoza, a judge in Badiraguato, said. “It’s better I don’t know what they are up to. Knowing could be dangerous.”

The history of the fight against narcotics in Sinaloa is long and checkered. Nine years ago, the federal government sent troops to the foot of the Sierra Madre to search out and destroy marijuana and opium poppy crops. The campaign, code-named Operation Condor, succeeded, and smuggling from Sinaloa declined. Mexico won praise from Washington for the effort.

Traffickers Flee South

But many of the major traffickers escaped prosecution and fled south to Guadalajara, where they regrouped and went back to work. In recent years, despite the continued presence of soldiers in the mountains of Sinaloa, the drug traffic in the state has rebounded.

Major drug traffickers, squads of bodyguards in tow, appear openly at weddings and baptisms in Culiacan. Gangsters are reportedly penetrating private business in the Culiacan area by lending money to financially strapped businessmen.

Jorge del Rincon, head of the opposition National Action Party in Culiacan, pointed to three prime real estate parcels downtown and said: “You see the land at that corner, and the lot across the street, and that one? They all belong to them.”

They and them are popular Culiacan euphemisms for narcotics smugglers.

Free-Wheeling Ways

The free-wheeling ways of the drug operators call into question the government’s commitment to fight the drug traffic and focus attention on the effectiveness of Sinaloa Gov. Antonio Toledo Corro.

The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration has accused Toledo Corro of protecting Felix Gallardo, who is alleged to be a big-time drug trafficker. Gallardo is wanted in connection with the killing last year of Enrique S. Camarena, a U.S. drug enforcement agent stationed in Mexico.

Published articles have linked Toledo Corro, 67, with Gallardo through a romantic liaison with a sister of Gallardo. Toledo, who was unavailable to talk with a visiting Times reporter, has denied that he knows Gallardo.

Police Chief Resigns

There has been such an upswing in drug activity and violence in Sinaloa that Toledo Corro’s attorney general and chief of police have both resigned, reportedly under pressure from President Miguel de la Madrid.

In April, the federal government sent troops to Culiacan and checked vehicle traffic on major highways for weapons and drugs. Local observers contend that the crackdown was meant to clear the air before state elections in July.

“The government wants to create a climate of tranquility around the official candidates,” said Rosario Oropeza, editor of El Debate, a newspaper in Culiacan.

Establishing tranquility will not be easy. Not long ago, a pair of teen-agers on a motorcycle were gunned down by a policemen who, according to witnesses, was displaying his marksmanship. Gunmen walked into a Culiacan hospital and shot two men who had been wounded in a shootout. The rector of the local university asked for police protection on campus because female students were being harassed and kidnaped. Nearby Tule Peak was for several months the dumping ground of bodies said to be those of drug war victims.

Barred Windows

“Everyone is putting bars on their windows,” businessman Arnulfo Valdez said. “These days, in a store, you don’t know if you are greeting a client or a thief.”

The financial advantages of growing marijuana or poppies instead of corn have set off a violent land rush in Sinaloa. Drug traffickers, armed with such weapons as U.S. Army-style M-16 rifles and Soviet-style AK-47 rifles, have bullied some farmers off coastal land to clear the plots for marijuana plantings, according to press reports here.

Margarito Parvaro, a warden at the jail in Badiraguato, said, “Sometimes, you see a car full of armed men, and you don’t know who they are, the government or the smugglers.”

Despite the violence, or perhaps because of it, the drug traffic has taken on an air of romance for some people here. People in the business are known by nicknames: “The Black Cat,” “The Godfather,” “Blackie.” Polka bands pay homage to famous smugglers with bouncy ballads called corridos.

At least four songs feature the exploits of Rafael Caro Quintero and Ernesto Fonseca, two alleged gang leaders jailed last year in connection with the torture-murder of Camarena, the American agent.

A verse of the “Ballad of Caro Quintero” goes:

For killing a policemen of the American government,

Today he finds himself in jail;

But the lion is still king of the jungle,

Even when caught by the tail.

“Such songs reflect a certain illusion of what drugs mean,” Father Esteban Gonzalez, a parish priest in Culiacan, said. “It is in a way a rejection of authority.”

Gonzalez notes that bandits in Sinaloa have long been admired by many of the poor. This is reflected in the shrine to the bandit Jesus Malverde, who is said to have been hanged from a nearby tree by the federal police. The plaster bust of Malverde and several other monuments are housed in a glassed-in, tin-roofed pavilion.

Officially, the Roman Catholic Church rejects the adoration of Malverde, yet pilgrims frequently leave offerings of wreaths and money. The caretakers, careful to show that this is a charitable undertaking, put up photos of free funerals and wheelchair giveaways financed by the contributions.

According to Father Gonzalez, drug traffickers often pay for bands to serenade at the shrine, and they buy loads of fireworks for celebrations.

“As if there weren’t enough explosions here already,” he said.